Essay, 'Email, alive and well.'

Email, Alive and Well.

By Jessie Hunt


“Despite common belief, E-mail actually pre-dates the widespread use of the Internet. It was invented by Ray Tomlinson in 1971.” (Search web guide, encyclopaedia.) Today e-mails are sent almost instantly through internet connected hosts. “Information races back and forth over the net in the form of tiny ‘packets’ of digital data. When you send an e-mail, it is split into many of these digital packets. These packets make separate journeys through the network, sometimes by very different routes – going across different continents or up and down satellites. At the destination the packets are put back together again.”(Woodford, C. ‘Digital Technology’ 2006; 30.) Email allows people to communicate with each other from the comfort of their computer chairs and serves many different and useful purposes.

The basis of this essay is to prove that e-mail is still alive and social networks such as My Space are not taking it’s place. This will be done by discussing the following points;
Email is still used by large companies.
Able to send large attachments through e-mail.
Spam is now becoming just as common on My Space as it is on e-mail e.g. spam comments.
My Space is “a place for friends.”
E-mail is seen as a more professional way of contacting people.
My Space is not seen as very professional in the business world.
Must have an e-mail address to be a member of My Space.

Although many online articles today argue that email is dead many of them are basing their arguments on the opinions of children for example an online article on C Net News.com featured the headline “Kids say e-mail is, like soooo dead.” Surely it is fair to say that young children grow up, become adults and start jobs, it is very unlikely that when they are managing a company, sending attachments to colleagues that they will sign in to My Space and post it through a comment or message. Of course young people prefer to use social networks such as My Space to connect with their friends however when looking at it from a business perspective My Space is not seen as a very ‘professional’ way of contacting colleagues. Perhaps it could be said that email may be used less often by young people as a source of communicating with friends however the majority of us use e-mail on a day to day basis. The following quote from Peter Jordan supports this statement, “Everyone is doing it, from big business and not-for-profits to 15 year olds.” (Jordan, P. ‘Digital Media, access an emerging career.’ 2007;55.)

Most Internet users worldwide use the Web primarily for e-mail and search, according to a global survey conducted by Gartner in 2007. Only one demographic group surveyed, however, did not follow these trends. Teens aged 13 to 18 showed a wide range of Internet interests, varying from downloading music and playing games to blogging and social networks. This statistic shows that while young people prefer social networking to communicate with friends the rest of society doesn’t necessarily follow. In fact it appears that while many adults are at work personal email use often takes preference. The Pew Internet Project has released a report on e-mail usage in the workplace, which presents the results from a recent US survey. The survey results showed that 98% of Americans used personal email on the job. (New Internet Users: What They Do Online, What They Don’t, and Implications for the ‘Net’s Future, march 2000 poll.) This statistic proves that not only is email still being used as a business tool but also as a way to connect with friends.

Another important factor to consider is that in order to sign up to a social network such as My Space it is compulsory to have an e-mail address. Not only that but My Space itself employs the help of email to let its users know when they have a new comment, message or friend request.

E-mail also seems to be continually beat down on for the amount of spam that fills user’s inboxes. Many believe this is the reason that young people have conformed to social networks rather than sifting through spam to find the relevant e-mails. While email engines such as hotmail and yahoo are continually finding ways to prevent spam coming through hackers and spammers are now turning to social networks, such as My Space to post their spam.

An example of My Space spam featured in an online article in The Register. “Kristina Bartley, who in early 2005 started the My Space group Brunettes Kick Ass. For a while, it was a vibrant place for people to gather to discuss all kinds of stuff, be it word associations, haiku games or their favorite booze. Then it was hit by a blizzard of spam that Bartley has never successfully been able to dig out from underneath. One day a spammer posted 15 pages worth of crap. My Space eventually canceled the spammer's account and also deleted the text contained in the mass messages, but unfortunately, the postings remained in the group's index. That meant members had to sift through 15 pages of blank postings before finding legit ones.
A few days later, a new spammer left 500 pages worth of postings. Bartley eventually converted the group to private, so people would have to receive her explicit permission before being able to post messages. But even this has done nothing to stem the viral wave of crap, which in many cases includes postings of some of the vilest porn known to man. To make matters worse, the vandals have figured out a way to ban her most vocal supporters from accessing the group, so they are unable to participate in any meaningful way.”
"A few months ago there would be a post a minute in this group and now it's sometimes one every hour," Bartley says. "It's sad to see something I've worked on so hard fall apart in the hands of a spammer and no help from My Space." (My Space users snowed in by new blizzard of spam. May. 2007)

Viagra marketers, pedophiles and hackers have latched onto My Space causing it to become as ineffective as most other net based forums. Its not only My Space groups being attacked either many users find their friends account have been hacked resulting in many fake comments regarding free Macies gift vouchers and free ring tones.

While it is almost impossible to avoid spam on a personal e-mail account there are some web mail accounts that have such tight security barley any spam leaks through the users inboxes. For example g-mail is known to be a very tough against spam. Griffith University student Chris Larder quotes, “I have a gmail account as well as hotmail however I find that gmail is far more successful at keeping out spam, I might get only one or two spam e-mails in a week as opposed to 10 or 15 from hotmail. E-mail is still a great tool, you just need to know which web mail to choose.”

While My Space might be used relentlessly by the younger generations to communicate with school or university friends it is unlikely that it will take over from e-mail. Not only does e-mail allow the user to send long messages, but also attachment files, pictures and send the e-mail to a large number of contacts. E-mail is seen as a professional and very effective business tool weather it be e-mailing a colleague or marketing through e-mail it is used every single day. From the evidence provided it is clear the email is definitely here to stay.












References:

· Search Web Guide. Accessed on 22/05/08[http://www.ebroadcast.com.au/lookup/encyclopedia/e-/E-mail.html]
· eMarketer. ‘Teens signal shift in internet usage.’ Accessed on 22/05/08 [http://www.emarketer.com/Article.aspx?id=1006243&src=article_head_sitesearch]
· cNet, News.com. ‘Kids say email is like soooo dead.’ S. Olsen. 2007.
· EmailStatCenter.com. ‘Email usage/ penetration.’ Accessed on 22/05/08 [http://www.emailstatcenter.com/Usage.html]
· John B. Horrigan. ‘New Internet Users: What They Do Online, What They Don’t, and Implications for the ‘Net’s Future’ March. 2007. Accessed on 22/05/08 [http://www.pewinternet.org/pdfs/new_user_report.pdf]
· ‘IFA Email Usage 2007’. Stone Shot. Accessed on 22/05/08 [http://www.stoneshot.com/pdf/ifa-survey-2007.pdf]
· Jordan, P. ‘Digital Media, access an emerging career.’ Published by Career FAQs PTY LTD. 2007)
· Woodford, C. ‘Digital Technology’ Published by Evans Brothers. 2007.)
· Weaver, B. ‘Catch The Wave’ Published by RMIT University Press. 2003